A Stick Figure Questionnaire!

Aaron suggested I draw some boy/girl stick people The Owl's bathroom doors, which need new signs, and I might have drawn too many. In fact, I might not even be done drawing them.

So far I have 5 stick people to choose from for each door and I need some opinions!

Which option do you like best? Would you prefer to see two options combined? Do you hate them all? Would you like to make some of your own stick suggestions for me to draw?

Please Please Please put your votes and comments on the blog here (you don't need to have your own blogger account to do so!) This will help me out a lot because I'm going to post this in a few different places and I'd like to be able to have all the responses go to one spot :)

These are a little rough, even by stick figure standards, so keep that in mind.

That's the end of what I've drawn today. Here are a few other options from past drawings that I think would make fun bathroom door figures, but they aren't actually up for voting cause Aaron really wants them to be stick people and not cartoons. 

Misadventures in Dental Health

Aaron has needed to go to the dentist for a while. Recently his sore tooth got to the point where he just couldn't ignore it any longer, and to the dentist we went.

It turned out that he needed more than one tooth related procedure so we made an appointment for him to have all his work done at once with something called sleep dentistry. The night before the appointment Aaron took a pill, and then he took another pill the next morning, and then they gave him crushed-up-so-you-don't-choke-on-it pills at the dentist's office. I was in the waiting room so I didn't actually get to see his reaction to the powdered dose but I was informed that he kept everyone entertained while they fixed his mouth.

All this medicine doesn't actually put you to sleep, it's more like it keeps you right on the edge of sleep, awake and aware... but not at the same time. The pills are hypnotics and amnesiacs so even if a little pain slips through you won't actually remember it later. Pretty sweet deal really - I had it done when I got my wisdom teeth pulled.

All this sleepy time medicine has a really odd effect on the body though. While you're on it you think you are just fine. When they wheeled Aaron into the office to go over his aftercare with me he was pretty well convinced that he was behaving normally.

He wasn't.

His speech was hilariously slurred, he couldn't stop hiccuping (although I'm not sure he was actually aware that he was hiccuping), and he kept pulling his lower lip down and out, like he was trying to inspect it for hidden compartments or something. If he did have a hidden pocket in his lip it was leaking drool onto his goatee.

The hygienist explained that he would be this way for a while and that he shouldn't be left alone or allowed to walk around by himself for the rest of the day. He objected to the idea that he couldn't walk, but promptly forgot what he was objecting to in favor of trying to read the aftercare instructions. I told him he probably wouldn't remember reading it but he didn't believe me.

I signed a paper agreeing, among other things, not to let Aaron wander around alone, do any internet shopping, or get into arguments on Facebook.

"You're all dicks," he slurred in an apparent imitation of a fight on the internet.
I assured the hygienist that no one would notice the difference if he did get on Facebook.

I got up and grabbed my bag so we could leave. Aaron remembered what he'd been objecting to earlier and tried to get up from the wheel chair. He got his butt about four inches off the chair before he started wobbling. I eased him back down and the hygienist told him she had to wheel him out, to which he inexplicably replied that he did not like people singing happy birthday to him in restaurants.

We got him loaded into the car and I started to drive us home. A few miles down the road Aaron abruptly shouted

"WE NEED hiccup TO GO TO THE STORE."

He wanted to go to Earth Fare, and in his defense we had discussed going there before all the pills.

I told him "There's no way I'm taking you to Earth Fare."

"Why not?" hiccup.

"Because you have no idea how ridiculous you're acting!"

"But it'll be hiccup funny cause the people will see me all [indiscernible sounds] and they'll be all haha what's wrong hiccup and I'll be all oh I'm all messed up on the pills."

I didn't really know what to say to that.

"We need things! I hiccup don't have the hiccup things that I need at home!"
He pulled his lip out again and pointed out the windshield, "TURN AROUND!"

It was pretty clear he wasn't gonna let this go so I turned around and took him to get his things.

I did my best to keep him steady on the short walk through the parking lot and I gave him a shopping cart to use as a walker once we got inside. Even with the cart-walker he was still pretty wobbly. He was also fast. He kept suddenly rushing off to look at things, forcing me to race after him to keep him from falling over (or knocking a display over). It was the most stressful grocery experience I've ever had.

The things Aaron needed at the store were extra hot ginger ale and fresh peanut butter. Once we were inside the store he must have thought of a few more necessities because he also bought a six pack of beer, a bottle of dessert wine, two packages of goat cheese, a package of cheddar cheese, a frozen pizza, apples, and a salami. On the way out of the store he chatted with the checkout girls about an episode of Hoarders. He picked up one bag while I gathered up the rest, and before I knew it he was out the door and weaving through the parking lot. I hobbled after him as fast as I could (which wasn't very with all that beer and soda). Luckily he made it back to the car without getting run over. Or falling over.

When we got home Aaron took his frozen pizza out of the shopping bag and put it on top of the stove. I unpacked everything else and started putting things away. After a few minutes I realized he'd disappeared, but I figured he'd be right back since he'd left the pizza out.

After a few more minutes I went looking and found him in bed with the covers pulled up over his head, sound asleep and snoring.

He slept all day.

I tried to wake him once at 6pm and again at 7pm. I had, after all, signed a paper agreeing to make sure he had enough to eat and drink. At 6pm I asked him if he was thirsty, and told him he was supposed to drink some water. He just stared blankly at me and then closed his eyes again. When I tried again at 7 he woke up enough to tell me that he wasn't hungry, and that he didn't care if he was supposed to have water.

He finally got up at around 8:40 and had one of his ginger ales.

He was back in ben again before 11:00.

He didn't eat any of his snacks or his pizza.

The next morning he didn't remember anything about his adventure at the grocery store. He didn't remember drinking his ginger ale, or his hiccups, or his fascination with his lower lip.

Two days later he didn't remember not remembering the things he didn't remember.

Food Doodles - Part One

There is a Forbidden Forest behind our restaurant

There is a forbidden forest behind The Owl! Well, actually it's not The Owl yet, but it will be soon, and when it is we're gonna be getting out our machetes.

Yes you read that right. We got machetes. We have other sharp cutty things too, but I don't know what they're called, so I'm going to focus on the MACHETES! I'm totally excited to try them out.

I am also slightly terrified.

I am terrified for a few reasons. Let's take a look at those reasons in the form of a list.

              Reasons to be afraid of The Forbidden Forest Project

1. Machetes are fucking sharp. They can cut you. And by you I mean me. 
2. Sometimes plants are sharp too. They will also cut you. And sometimes they are  poisonous, which can make you itch. Unless you're Aaron. If you're Aaron your mutant super power is immunity to itchy poison plants, rendering you capable of boldly crashing through thick undergrowth clad in only shorts and flip flops. Ok maybe not flip flops. 
3. Bugs.
4. BUGS!!!!!!!!!
5. Clumsiness. I am clumsy. There's no getting around it. Think of a ridiculous way one might injure oneself while cutting down a Forbidden Forest and I will probably find it. 
6. Bees. 
7. Angry animals who will be mad that we are chopping down their home because  they  don't know that we are still going to have green things growing for them to live in and eat so they attack us with their teeth and claws. 
8. Weird garbage. Our recon on the outer edges of The Forest has already found empty cans and bottles (presumably of an alcoholic nature), random wires, old wood, and a shoe. Who knows what else lies within. 
9. 
   
10. There's a cliff. Way at the back of The Forest. We can't really tell how far down it goes, or how quickly it goes there, from our side of the forest. In the neighboring (slightly less forbidden but still kind of forbidden cause there's a rope barrier and a lot more old wood garbage) forest we can see very far down. Like "oops you're dead cause you fell off this cliff" far. I'm not exaggerating. I might be exaggerating. But still, cliff = scary!!!  

And that is why I am slightly terrified. I really wanted it to be a 10 things long list, but I didn't have a 9th thing. If you happen to know of a 9th thing to be afraid of while cutting down Forbidden Forests please comment! I would hate to get in there, thinking I was safe because I'd made a list of all the things that could harm me, only to discover that the 9th thing I didn't know about was the most horrible scary gross awful thing that can happen to a person in a Forest. 

Assuming we make it through the coming adventure intact we will be converting our Forbidden Forest into a Lovely Garden. In The Lovely Garden we will grow many things. You'll then be able to purchase these things in the forms of burger toppings, vegetables, fries, and salads! The Lovely Garden will also provide a Lovely View for anyone eating out on the patio. If The Forbidden Forest had it's way anyone sitting on the patio would have a terrifying view. And no one likes to be terrified while eating burgers. 

I gots an I Pad and I made arts with it!

And I'm trying to blog from it. Feel free to not read this since it's really just a test post anyway. For example I need to test if I know how to use HTML to get all italic with this app.

I also need to see if I can figure out how picture adding works.











Woohoo! Picture added! Dunno if my italics worked yet though. That picture, btw, very first one drawn on my iPad. I know, it's spectacular. I also dre (edit: hey look! a typo!!) a park.










You might be wondering why it's so lonely in my park. That would because it came out looking fairly naturalistic when I draw people they look... Not naturalistic.

Let's try a photo!








Well I couldn't make the thing that said I could crop and scale work, so he's a bit cut off, and he's also REALLY poorly lit, and that was probably too many commas, that was definitely too many commas, but anyway that's my kitty Sebastian. You may remember him from such illustrated classics as...

Well actually I don't know how to get a drawing from one of my other posts and add it to this one on the iPad so you'll just have to go look at all my old blogs until you find one with a drawing that resembles Sebastian. I'll give you a hint - in the drawing he wont be in a box.

Hey, know what? If you actually do that I'll get a nice boot (edit: hey look another typo! Unless I want a boot in my views. I don't think boots read blogs though.) in blog views! That'd be cool for me, and you'll get to read all my other awesome words if you haven't already, so it's totally a win win situation.

I think I've tested all the tests I'd thought of so far now. I'll probably test some more later. For some reason I feel like I should sign this like it's an email. It's not an email, it's a blog. And even if I did want to sign it, I didn't address it to anyone, so it'd be weird. I should just stop writing now....

Exercise! Bikes! New Drawing! Exclamation!

Recently Aaron and I decided we needed to get out more, and we needed to do it in an exercisey way. We're not necessarily unhealthy people, but with The Owl's opening still 2 months out we've been fighting a tendency to spend far too much time on our couches.

We're not "Go to the Gym" people, and I've never found running to be something I'd classify as "Fun." We have a Wii Fit, and although it is certainly fun it's still an indoor activity. When all these facts were taken into account the answer became clear.

We needed bicycles!

Several problems with this idea were immediately apparent. We live in an apartment, and we own a lot of stuff. Our tiny storage closet is packed to the ceiling, and our closets overflow with random things like guitar cases, old aquarium equipment, abandoned arts and crafts projects, holiday decorations, toys and games, and boxes. So many boxes. Boxes in boxes. Boxes of books. Boxes of cds and dvds. Boxes of all those bits and pieces of life that you don't need out on a shelf but just aren't quite ready to trash yet. Or maybe that's just me. Pack Rat extraordinaire.

So what were we to do? We wanted bikes, but we just didn't have anywhere to put them. Aaron found the answer.
















Yeah. That's a bike. A folding bike. Pretty cool, huh? This ones mine. I kinda love the 70s vibe with the green and brown color scheme. Mine arrived first, and this is a right-out-of-the-box picture. We were foldy bike novices, without the talent and skill to properly fold and strap everything into it's proper place. A few days later Aaron's bike arrived and we took them out for a test run.

There they are, in all their foldy glory.

You can see how much better we are at folding them up now. We're bike folding professionals. 

Aaron let me do a folding bike photo shoot so we could share our newfound skills with you.

The first thing you do is remove the velcro straps. For some reason I didn't take a picture of that.

The next step is swinging the front half forward so that it almost looks like a regular bike.

 A regular bike with no handle bars.

The handle bars were hiding down there next to the wheel. They flip up and lock in place. They are also height adjustable!

Ta Da! Bicycle Accomplished.






After our success with bicycle number one I felt compelled to continue filming as bicycle number two was transformed from Strange Folded Wheely Thing into Fully Functional Transportation and Exercise Unit.

I didn't take any pictures of the strappy parts. Again.

The process is pretty much the same. Really there was no reason to take pictures of both bikes.

As I mentioned before the handle bars on these have height adjustments. Now I'll mention that the seats are also adjustable! Mention Accomplished.

Ta da again! Oh yeah, that's why I took pictures of both bikes - to show you that there are a variety of body shapes available! Mine is called the "Step Through" style. Cause I can Step Through it. As opposed to Stepping Over it.

This may not seem like such a great thing for you, but I'm only five feet tall so it's pretty handy for me.

I wasn't in any of the pictures. I felt left out.






After our Bicycle Assembly photo shoot we rode around our apartment complex for a while. Our complex isn't all that big, but it does have a somewhat hilly terrain. And we hadn't riden bikes in a long time. The results were probably predictable. After about 5 minutes my legs started feeling a little shaky. After 15 minutes they had a whole Jello thing going on. 20 minutes passed and my whole body had started to feel like a wet Spaghatta Nadle! <----- Click that. Click it NOW.                  ..........You're welcome.

We only rode for a half an hour at the absolute most. At the end of that half hour I was pretty sure I was going to die. And I still had to fold my bike up and carry it inside.

It turned out I didn't die. But my hair was wet with sweat and I wasn't gonna be walking anytime soon.

I drank this entire cup of cucumber water. It helped. A lot. <---- Click that too.

You're welcome. Again.




So in conclusion, it might be a while before I look upon my bicycle with the fondness portrayed in my drawing. Don't get me wrong, I love my bicycle, I just don't love turning into a useless pile of mush when I use it. But then again, that's the point isn't it? My goal. To not turn into a pile of mush from riding a bike for thirty measly minutes. 


Wish me luck.






Did you click the links? No? Man, are you missing out. Those links take you straight into the wonderful magical world of Hyperbole and a Half, the best blog on the internet. It's author, Allie Brosh, is my blog hero. I probably wouldn't even be doing this if I hadn't read hers first. I've mentioned this before, and I probably will again. 'Cause I believe in spreading awesome when and where ever possible.


Oh, almost forgot, if you're interested in checking out a foldy bike for yourself you can do that Here.